


The Vigilante

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 04:29:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14560893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Several children have been murdered





	The Vigilante

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 sentinel bingo prompt 'killers'
> 
> This story is followed by Taking a Break

The Vigilante

by Bluewolf

It was a bad case; a very bad case. Eleven children murdered over a period of two months. Nine boys, two girls. Ages ranging from eight to eleven.

There was no pattern to the deaths. Three of the victims had been strangled; two had been found with plastic bags fastened over their heads; two had had their throats cut; and Dan Wolf had been unable to establish the cause of death of the final four, but he suspected that they had been smothered in some way - maybe even by the use of plastic bags, but in that case the killer had had the bags fastened in some way that didn't leave any marks, and then removed the bags once the victims were dead. None showed any sign of having been sexually assaulted. There were no fingerprints, even partial ones, anywhere on the bodies; as if the killer had worn gloves.

Although seven of the victims had attended the same school, the other four went to different schools - three to one, one to another; but their bodies weren't found anywhere near the schools they had attended, or even anywhere near where another body had been found.

There was only one common factor; all had been described by their teachers as disobedient, disruptive brats. Even the mother of one of the older boys had admitted it was almost a relief to have lost him; he had hit her more than once when she had tried to stop doing something she knew was dangerous. (The father had been proud of his son's behavior, seeing it as a sign of strength. But from what the mother said, Jim decided that if he hadn't been killed, the boy would undoubtedly have been in prison for assault, possibly even murder, by the time he was eighteen.)

So was the killer some kind of vigilante, killing children he saw as potential criminals before they could actually commit crimes? It wasn't impossible; reading through the reports made by the Homicide detectives (before the case was passed on to Major Crime) Jim realized that the teachers of several of the dead children had been in agreement that the potential for criminal behavior had been there - even in the two youngest, one aged eight, the other just a few days past his ninth birthday.

If they had all been from the one school, that would have made the killer - at least potentially - one of the staff. But they were from three different schools, none of the teachers were peripatetic... and while one of the bodies had been found relatively close to where one of the teachers lived, the victim hadn't attended his school.

Jim reread the general report he had compiled after the case was passed to them by Homicide, totally frustrated.

Even Blair, who had read up on geographical profiling once he had started police training, admitted that it was unlikely to help. The bodies were too scattered throughout Cascade.

"There's absolutely no common factor, other than, according to their teachers, they were all brats," Jim told Simon. "Even the cause of death wasn't - well - consistent inside each school. Okay, most of them went to the one school, Cascade Elementary. The two with their throats cut attended Cascade Elementary and Holy Trinity. The three strangled ones - Cascade Elementary and Holy Trinity. The other six - spread over the three schools - four from Cascade Elementary, one each from Holy Trinity and one from the Islamic School. There's not even any indication that any of the teachers knew each other - outside their own school, obviously."

Meanwhile, Blair had been rereading the reports on the children - he was sure he was missing something.

Addresses for the kids... how would they get home from their various schools? He called up a street map for Cascade and began to check it.

He frowned as he studied the various routes. Hmmm... the ones who went to Holy Trinity and the Islamic School all lived fairly near Cascade Elementary, it was religion that took them to different schools. His frown intensified as he realized that all four could cross the road beside Cascade Elementary.

That gave one possible common factor - the school crossing guard. And if the children had all been disobedient - who more likely to be infuriated by that than the crossing guard? Their parents might have been very insistent that they cross the road at the guard, threatened them in a way calculated to make them obey that one rule... but it left the door wide open for them to be disruptive, impertinent... generally annoying. The guard would have no way to discipline them, and if he felt their behavior was endangering the other children - or even the drivers of the cars...

The first death had been two months earlier. Blair turned back to his computer, and called up any accidents on that stretch of road some two to three months earlier, at the time the children would be going home from school.

There was one. Two cars had been approaching the crossing from different directions, and the guard had kept the children on the sidewalk - and then one of them had run out onto the road. The nearer car had swerved to avoid the child, and hit the other one head on. One driver had died; the other had survived, but with life-changing injuries.

The crossing guard had been completely cleared of any blame; the other children all insisted that he had stopped them. And one of those children had commented that the one who had run out onto the road seemed to be smirking as he watched the accident happening.

The child who had run onto the road wasn't named, but Blair decided that he had to have been the first of the murdered children.

Had the crossing guard somehow managed to discover where the child lived, and decided to... well, execute him? And then continued to execute children that he feared would cause more accidents? It wasn't impossible.

He presented the facts he had found to Jim, when he returned from speaking to Simon.

"I think we need to speak to that crossing guard," Jim said, and Blair nodded.

"We won't be able to get him until tomorrow, though," Blair said. "We've worked late tonight; there won't be anyone available now to give us an address for him."

"First thing tomorrow, then," Jim said.

***

They began the day by going to Cascade Elementary, only to discover that there was no crossing guard on duty. Surprised, they went into the school and found the head teacher, who nodded a surprised acknowledgement to Blair.

"Hello, Mr. Sandburg."

"Mr. Carson! I didn't realize you were based here now."

"I've only been here since the start of the school year," Carson said.

Blair nodded. "I'm with the police now - this is my partner, Detective Ellison. We were hoping to have a word with your crossing guard, but he isn't there this morning."

"He's not? That means there's nobody to see the children safely across the road. Excuse me a minute!" He rushed out.

Jim looked at Blair. "Is there anyone you don't know?"

Blair grinned. "He was the deputy head at Rockwell High a couple of years ago, and asked Chancellor Edwards to send someone to go in and talk to the senior class about academic careers other than the obvious ones. She picked me. I went there several times. Obviously I leaned fairly hard on the 'soft' sciences like anthropology/archaeology, but I also knew enough about subjects like psychology to include them, and Carson was pretty pleased with my presentations. It gave the kids who wanted to go to university at least a surface realization that there was a wider range of options than language-math-hard science - apparently one or two of the class had expressed a wish to go to university but weren't interested in those obvious subjects."

"Good idea," Jim agreed.

Carson came back in a couple of minutes later. "Sorry about that - I've sent one of the teachers out to substitute for Halford. But just not turning up without letting the school know - that's not like him. Why did you want to see him, anyway?"

Jim and Blair looked at each other. "He's one possible common factor in the deaths of several children over the last two months," Jim said quietly.

"What?" Carson shook his head. "He's... he's a very gentle, sympathetic man. The children love him. Yes, I know he had a slight problem with several of the children who were killed, but if I'm honest everyone had a problem with them."

"We understand from the interviews Homicide had with the teachers of the children who were killed that they were all - well, brats," Blair said.

Carson sighed. "None of them - the ones from here, at least - were ever going to be respectable members of society. We do what we can to instill good behavior, of course, but... "

"We know," Blair said. "After we got the case, we spoke to the families, which Homicide hadn't had a chance to do. Even the mother of one of the children... He'd hit her several times. The thing is, even the children who went to the other two schools probably crossed the road here. Anyway... if you could give us an address for Mr. Halford, we'll go and check up on him. And make sure he lets you know why he isn't here this morning."

"Thanks." He checked a notebook and gave them the address.

***

There was no answer to their knock on the door. Jim checked it, and found it was unlocked.

They went in, Jim calling, "Cascade police!" as they did.

There was no reply.

They began to check the various doors leading from the small hallway. One led into a kitchen; empty. The next led into a living room. A man was sitting slumped in an armchair; they went over to him.

He was dead.

On the table in front of him was an envelope; on it was written in an unsteady hand, 'to the police'.

Jim reached into his pocket for gloves. The flap of the envelope was tucked in, not stuck down. He opened it and read the letter inside.

"This is a confession. I killed those children. They were a danger to society. The first one caused an accident that killed a man - and he was happy that he'd done it. The others... I could see the day coming when they, too, would cause a death. So I acted to stop them.

"But now I know I'm dying; my heart is failing. I have medicine for it I've decided not to take.

"I don't want to see anyone else suspected of these deaths... but I won't pay for them either.

"David Halford."

***

The rest was pure routine. They let Carson know that the missing crossing guard was dead, then went back to the PD. The reports on the dead children were finalized with 'the killer was found dead'. (Halford had no known relatives; John Carson took responsibility for his burial.)

In the elevator going down to the garage, Blair said, "We have three weeks off, starting now. And don't argue; you need the break. How would you feel about hiring a camper van for our break?"

Jim smiled, and chose not to argue.


End file.
